Parkland Hospital Nurse Phyllis Hall Claims She Saw A Bullet Next To JFK's Neck On The Cart.

[Joe Bauer]

Call it dementia if you want, but catch this Parkland Hospital nurse stating she "saw a bullet on JFK's stretcher" just as it was being wheeled into ( or already wheeled into ) Trauma Room one.

If you are going to misstate, misremember or make up such a mind blowing important close up observation in the middle of an Earth shaking historic event, guess you might as well make it one hell of a WHOPPER!

Catch this remarkable ( or crazy?) claim at the 2 minute and 5 second time of the tape.

 

 

 

3:18NOW PLAYING

 

 

JFK shooting witness: nurse recalls day President Kennedy was shot in Dallas

Edited September 14, 2023 by Joe Bauer

[Micah Mileto]

I've been trying to make a list of every piece of information suggesting the existence of bullets and bullet fragments that have gone missing. If you take these accounts on face value and add them all up, you have about 30 bullets flying around Dealey Plaza.

[Joe Bauer]

6 hours ago, Micah Mileto said:

I've been trying to make a list of every piece of information suggesting the existence of bullets and bullet fragments that have gone missing. If you take these accounts on face value and add them all up, you have about 30 bullets flying around Dealey Plaza.

Micah, do you believe this former Parkland Nurse regards her account of seeing a bullet on JFK's stretcher? If so why? If not why?

Edited September 2, 2020 by Joe Bauer

[Greg Doudna]

Even though I think the original report out of Parkland that the bullet found on the stretcher came from JFK was likely correct and the best explanation for what happened to the bullet that hit JFK in the back, I do not think the story of Nurse Hall contributes information to this. First, there is a lack of verification or corroboration that she was in that room with JFK. No other witness named her as being present in that room. Second, none of the witnesses who were in the room with JFK reported seeing what she says she saw--a bullet visible from outside JFK’s body near JFK's ear in plain sight. And third, she claims she kept her sighting of that bullet secret, never told anyone including even her own husband for years, before finally coming forth with the story. If she had seen such a bullet for real in the emergency room near JFK's head, one would think she would have told a supervisor at work or contacted the FBI or the Warren Commission, let alone confide in her own husband--what was the big secret? Therefore this testimony does not strike me as credible. 

[Joe Bauer]

If this story from Nurse Hall is made up, it shows some type of mental break or older age dementia IMO.

She goes into details that if made up might be easy to discount. She describes who came into the trauma room hallway in order and name and position and describes emotional states of LBJ and Jackie.

She describes JFK's body as dressed in nice pants, yet inferring his upper body was exposed with his head and shoulders area covered with Jackie hovered down over JFK to block others from seeing his bloody head.

In the least, her observations with details indicate to me that she "was" in the crush of medical and security personnel in the Trauma Room hallway and close enough to the stretchers to see JFK ( and maybe Connally? ) as they were wheeled in.

There is NO DOUBT she was employed as a Parkland nurse who did respond to the call to the trauma room area when she says she was. She has also been interviewed by the TXSBD 6th floor museum history project. I have seen this interview.

If her shocking bullet on JFK's stretcher story is made up or greatly exaggerated, imo to go this far with a false story ( in publicly recorded interviews ) you'd have to have had some break in your psyche.

My guess or sense is however that she doesn't have a history of mental illness.

Questions and debates about why people don't share their JFK  assassination stories ( in this case the bullet on the stretcher) always make me shake my head.

Many people who saw or knew things about anything related to the JFK assassination or other main characters involved such as Ruby and Oswald have NEVER come forward with what they saw or knew. I am sure of this.

Why? My God...like Jack Martin told Jim Garrison ( in Garrison's book "On The Trail Of The Assassins" and in the "JFK" film scene) at one point in his questioning of Martin, where Martin stopped and refused to divulge any more info.

Garrison asked Martin...who are you afraid of Jack?

He looked at Garrison and said "do I have to spell it out for you?"

New Orleans attorney Dean Andrews and even David Ferry also expressed fear for their lives from divulging what they fully knew.

The fear factor in the JFK assassination event has always been and still is off the charts.

I could easily understand Nurse Hall clamming up for just this reason.

And for years!

 

Edited September 4, 2020 by Joe Bauer

[Tony Krome]

You guys jumped a little too quick, the bullet was right where she said it was.

[Joe Bauer]

On 9/2/2020 at 9:09 PM, Tony Krome said:

You guys jumped a little too quick, the bullet was right where she said it was.

Tony, you aren't saying this sarcastically are you?

If not, do you agree about my reasoning to explain Nurse Hall's not following up on seeing the bullet? 

She probably assumed someone of authority took control of the bullet and would handle it's provenance and evidence handling.

When she never heard another word about it, what could she do? Maybe she thought things such as a bullet might be held in secret for years and trusted the government in this matter.

In another interview with the TXSBD 6th floor museum project Nurse Hall was asked her political views back in 1963.

She stammered a little and tried to make a joke out of the fact that she was definitely anti-Kennedy ...

stating simply "I'm very conservative."

Perhaps feeling a little uncomfortable revealing this and thinking maybe some in the audience might feel she wasn't as sympathetic toward and devastated by the brutal slaughter of JFK?

But she was honest about her political/JFK feelings back in 1963.

That spoke well about her personal integrity and honesty imo.

 

Edited September 4, 2020 by Joe Bauer

[Joe Bauer]

 

 

 

 

 

38:27NOW PLAYING

 

In the above interview of Nurse Hall she describes her memories of the day JFK was wheeled into the Parkland Hospital's Trauma center.

Pretty obvious she was there.

She does relate a few recollections that are not based on facts. I think a failing or confused memory might be the issue.

She mentions the shock and reality power of the event fully hitting her when "his body was taken across the country in a train."  Meaning JFK's? 

Only Robert Kennedy's body was sent on a memorial train ride after his assassination.

I remember viewing this 6th floor history interview several years ago. 

Then again a couple of years later.

The first time I viewed this 6th Floor museum historical project interview of Nurse Hall, I remember her mentioning seeing this bullet that she mentions in the first interview video shown in my first post.

The second time I watched this same history project interview on You Tube this part of her sharing was simply not there. Was this edited out?

A mis-remembering on my part? Possibly. But why wouldn't she mention this bullet observation in her first major public interview?  She obviously felt it was important enough to mention in a later brief hallway interview.

I would like to ask Nurse Hall if she did indeed mention the bullet observation in the original history project interview.

Nurse Hall also states in this interview her belief that there had to have been more than one shooter, that shots came from other locations and the official autopsy photos of JFK's head wounds do not match up with what she observed close up ( she felt JFK's neck and ankle for signs of a pulse ) in Trauma Room 1.

 

Nurse Hall doesn't seem emotionally or mentally off base

 in this interview above. Or exaggerating or overly dramatic

attention seeking.  

 

Edited September 6, 2020 by Joe Bauer

[Greg Doudna]

19 hours ago, Joe Bauer said:

 

Pretty obvious she was there.

She does relate a few recollections that are not based on facts. I think a failing memory might be the issue.

...[snip]...

Nurse Hall doesn't seem emotionally or mentally off base

 in this interview above. Or exaggerating or overly dramatic

attention seeking.  

 

Maybe you could be right after all. As I recall my skepticism was influenced by certain details recounted by Phyllis Hall, according to reports, that did not seem to add up to me as being consistent with someone who was there. (i) She had Jacqueline present in the trauma room throughout, and says Jacqueline declined an offer to wait outside, but other accounts say Jacqueline was sitting outside the door during much or most of the time. (ii) She also described the throat wound of JFK upon arrival as a gaping exit wound, which seems to describe post-tracheotomy or autopsy description rather than the way others described the throat wound prior to the tracheotomy.

But as you suggest could it be that the decades have garbled details in the memory of a witness who, as you say and I agree, "doesn't seem emotionally or mentally off base...or exaggerating or overly dramatic attention seeking". The problem is at this distance if she has these other details wrong, is her testimony reliable concerning the bullet? If she was there and did see a bullet, it is of interest that she says the bullet was not misshapen; that she says she never saw that bullet reported (apparently unaware that in the brief first hours that first night, the bullet which was found on a stretcher in a different location in the emergency area indeed was initially considered to have come from JFK, from the back shot, exactly in agreement with what Phyllis Hall describes); and that she says the bullet was pointed, not rounded at its tip. On that last detail both Wright and Tomlinson, the ones who found and turned in the bullet, also said the stretcher bullet was pointed not rounded. But C399 matched to the Mannlicher Carcano found in the TSBD has a rounded tip, not pointed, and it has other irregularities in its chain of custody. Is Phyllis Hall a further witness supporting that C399 was a substitution for an originally different stretcher bullet, in fixing up the case against Oswald? 

On lack of testimony or corroboration that she was in the trauma room with JFK, there is this (Dr. Jenkins testimony WC):

Mr. SPECTER - At about what time did you arrive at the emergency room? 
Dr. JENKINS - Oh, this was around 12:30-12:35 to 12:40. I shouldn't be 
indefinite about this--in our own specialty practice, we watch the clock 
closely and there are many things we have to keep up with, but I didn't 
get that time exactly, I'll admit. 
Mr. SPECTER - Who was present at the time of your arrival in the 
emergency room, if anyone? 
Dr. JENKINS - The hallway was loaded with people. 
Mr. SPECTER - What medical personnel were in attendance? 
Dr. JENKINS - Including Mrs. Kennedy, I recognized, and Secret Service 
men, I didn't know whether to block the way or get out of it, as it 
turned out. Dr. James Carrico and Dr. Dulany-Dick Dulany, I guess you 
have his name, and several nurses were in the room. 
Mr. SPECTER - Could you identify the nurses? 
Dr. JENKINS - Well, not really. I could identify them only having later 
looked around and identified from my own record that I have, the names 
of all who were there later. Now, whether they are the same ones when I 
first went there, I don't know. I have all the names in my report, it 
seemed to me 
Mr. SPECTER - Could you now identify all of the nurses from your later 
observations of them? 
Dr. JENKINS - Well, I can identify who was in there at the close of the 
procedure, that is, the doctors, as well as those who were helping. 
Mr. SPECTER - Fine, would you do that for us, please? 
Dr. JENKINS - These included a Mrs. or Miss Patricia Hutton and Miss 
Diana Bowron, B-o-w-r-o-n (spelling), and a Miss Henchliffe--I don't 
know her first name, but I do know it is Henchliffe. 
Mr. SPECTER - Margaret? 
Dr. JENKINS - Margaret---certainly. Those three--there were probably 
some student nurses too, whom I didn't recognize. Shall I continue? 
Mr. SPECTER - Yes, please. Have you now covered all the people you 
recollect as being in the room? 
Dr. JENKINS - Well, as I came into the room, I saw only the, 
actually--you know, in the haste of the coming of the President, two 
doctors whom I recognized, and there were other people and I have 
identified all I remember 
Mr. SPECTER - What did you observe as to the President's condition when 
you arrived in the emergency room? 
Dr. JENKINS - Well, I was aware of what he was in an agonal state. This 
is not a too unfamiliar state that we see in the Service, as much trauma 
as we see, that is, he had the agonal respiratory gasp made up of 
jerking movements of the mylohyoid group of muscles. These are referred 
to sometimes as chin jerk, tracheal tug or agonal muscles of 
respiration. He had this characteristic of respiration. His eyes were 
opened and somewhat exophthalmic and color was greatly suffused, 
cyanotic---a purplish cyanosis.   

Should the lack of witness testimony corroborating her presence in the trauma room be better characterized as ambiguous, not decisive?

And finally, on her keeping the bullet sighting to herself and not speaking of it publicly for decades, you correctly point out the factor of a tremendous  climate of fear in Dallas toward coming forward with information. That is seen in so many other witness reactions (the family of Ed Hoffmann and the Odio sisters, to name just two examples of fear and silence; not to mention the unknown undoubted hundreds of witnesses who remained so silent that no one ever knew of their existence). Point taken there.

[Joe Bauer]

GD.

I do not recall Nurse Hall describing the bullet, such as a ... pointed tip?

Is there another interview of her where she says this?

And my gosh, the shock of everyone responding to the arrival of the President of the Untied States in such a destroyed condition would make asking them to correctly and fully remember the actual names of all the doctors and nurses and others crowding into that dinky Trauma Room 1 ( or the entire Trauma Room area ) would be an impossible task.

The doctor's focus would have been hyper-fixed on the President who laid before them.

Dr. Jenkins mentioned clearly he couldn't remember who all was in that room during the chaos. Jenkins mentions that 3 nurses present might have been "student nurses?"

Student nurses?  Preposterous!   

That Trauma Room 1 scene would be the last place and time a supervising nurse would tell her students..."ladies, come on in and see the President."

Only the top experience nurses would even be called to assist in that tiny room.

Nurse Hall herself says most of her time in the room, she was pressed flat against the wall due to the crush of so many people in there.

Nurse Hall does get some details wrong. Easy to see this.

I do think she has some "cross/reference" mis-recollections.

Mixing things she may have read or heard after the event with what she actually saw in person.

However, imo she gets enough right in her story to convince me she "was" in Trauma Room 1 when JFK was in there. Even if only briefly.

One detail which was corroborated word for word by Doctor Jenkins was his description of JFK's color while he was on the Trauma Room table - "cyanotic" ... a purplish cyanosis. Nurse Hall also uses the medical term "cyanotic" but says it was grey blue.

If Nurse Hall has made up her recollection of a bullet on JFK's stretcher, my guess is she has received some criticism for doing so.

I wonder what she has to say about such criticism, especially whether she has again recollected something mistakenly due to cross referencing memories of other observations from later reports?

I've gotten details wrong about recollections from 50 years ago many times. Yet, on the other hand I have gotten the main story perfectly correct many times as well.

Edited September 6, 2020 by Joe Bauer

[Greg Doudna]

Joe, the bullet "pointed at its tip and showed no signs of damage" that Nurse Phyllis Hall says she saw "lodged between [JFK's] ear and his shoulder" is from here: https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/jfk-mystery-bullet-lodged-body-nurse-article-1.1512283 or https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/real-life-stories/nurse-phyllis-hall-tells-efforts-2713685.

[Joe Bauer]

I just accessed the link to the "Mirror" article on Nurse Hall.

According to this article Nurse Hall did indeed describe the bullet she claims she saw with the details you mentioned.

Can't help but consider her story with a little more doubt than before this information. However, I still don't think the bullet description discounts her bullet observation account entirely.

Edited September 5, 2020 by Joe Bauer

[K K Lane]

This 3-year-old thread on Nurse Hall was an interesting re-read.

I see a tendency to dismiss heterodox data points.   Essentially any new evidence that doesn't "fit" gets dismissed.   Science has wrestled with this paradigm problem for millenia.

[Joe Bauer]

Nurse Hall was not going to say anything about what she saw in Trauma Room 1 in public.

Nurse Hall's own doctors who worked on JFK were "sternly" warned by their chief doctor not to say anything to the press and even worse, try to make some money off of what they witnessed such as a book or paid article. And if they did he would see to it their careers were on the line.

Nurse Hall also says she was a conservative person. Code word for being against JFK's stances on things like race for sure.

So, again, if Nurse Hall truly did see the bullet she described and where she saw it, next to JFK's head...Houston, we have a problem.

Could prove Landis told the truth?

 

[Joe Bauer]

On 9/4/2020 at 8:06 AM, Joe Bauer said:

 

 

 

 

 

38:27NOW PLAYING

 

In the above interview of Nurse Hall she describes her memories of the day JFK was wheeled into the Parkland Hospital's Trauma center.

Pretty obvious she was there.

She does relate a few recollections that are not based on facts. I think a failing or confused memory might be the issue.

She mentions the shock and reality power of the event fully hitting her when "his body was taken across the country in a train."  Meaning JFK's? 

Only Robert Kennedy's body was sent on a memorial train ride after his assassination.

I remember viewing this 6th floor history interview several years ago. 

Then again a couple of years later.

The first time I viewed this 6th Floor museum historical project interview of Nurse Hall, I remember her mentioning seeing this bullet that she mentions in the first interview video shown in my first post.

The second time I watched this same history project interview on You Tube this part of her sharing was simply not there. Was this edited out?

A mis-remembering on my part? Possibly. But why wouldn't she mention this bullet observation in her first major public interview?  She obviously felt it was important enough to mention in a later brief hallway interview.

I would like to ask Nurse Hall if she did indeed mention the bullet observation in the original history project interview.

Nurse Hall also states in this interview her belief that there had to have been more than one shooter, that shots came from other locations and the official autopsy photos of JFK's head wounds do not match up with what she observed close up ( she felt JFK's neck and ankle for signs of a pulse ) in Trauma Room 1.

 

Nurse Hall doesn't seem emotionally or mentally off base

 in this interview above. Or exaggerating or overly dramatic

attention seeking.